Entrepreneurship on My Own Terms: Building a Startup as an Autistic Founder

For years, I’ve wanted to write about my experience as an entrepreneur. I wasn’t sure how to frame it or which themes to explore. But now I realise that some things can’t really be separated.

Introduction

I’ve wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was 12. While other kids were focused on school, sports, and friendships, I spent most of my time coding websites, building software, designing video games, and figuring out how to share or even sell what I made. I didn’t feel like school was for me. I wasn’t motivated by grades, I just wanted to create things.

I often felt like an outsider, not just socially, but in how I understood the world. The structure of school and relationships didn’t make much sense to me. People followed unspoken rules, seemed content going through the motions, and I couldn’t relate to any of it. What made sense to me was building something of my own.

Being autistic in that environment was brutal. I struggled with my mental health, severe anxiety, depression, constant emotional ups and downs. Life and school became more about surviving than learning. So I escaped into the things that grounded me, often with other people who felt like outsiders too. If I didn’t fit into the system, I would find a way to exist outside of it.

Looking back, I probably came off as pretentious, maybe even a bit contemptuous. I didn’t come from wealth, my dad’s a handyman, my mum’s a nurse, but I grew up with everything I needed, in the countryside. Still, I told myself I was different, that I didn’t need to follow the same rules as everyone else. I looked at teachers and imagined they would stay stuck in their classrooms forever, while I would go on to do something bigger. Maybe that belief pushed me forward. But it also meant I spent years trying to prove to myself that I wasn’t wrong.

That’s where my journey into entrepreneurship really started.
Spoiler: it didn’t go exactly the way I expected.

Young Projects

When I was 13, I remember developing websites from scratch using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (like many other people!). That was really fun, especially when it was related to video games. I was also exploring all kinds of tech skills and software, from Photoshop to C++ and Java, 3D modelling, and more.

I spent countless hours working on what became the main driver of my teenage years: a massive multiplayer game based on a fork of the MMORPG Flyff. It became a reference in the French-speaking online video gaming world at the time.

I also worked on so many other projects, building platforms and software, usually with a SaaS approach and most of the time to solve problems I was personally facing. I’m talking about dozens of apps and websites, from trip planning tools and dating websites to educational systems designed to help manage schools or universities.

Much later, I had to decide what to do with my life. To be honest, I didn’t want to stay in school, but my parents made me promise to at least finish and get my A-levels, which I eventually did.

Then I almost got pulled into the system and considered doing undergraduate studies in computer science. I actually started and stuck with it for 3 months before realising I was still surrounded by the same bunch of teenagers, except now, they were paying expensive tuition fees to be there. I had already paid for the year out of my own pocket, so I had to make the most of it. That’s when I decided to study marketing on my own (in a computer science school, yes), iterate on project ideas, do some freelancing to repay my student loan, and try to build a network and understand how things actually work in the real world.

One of my first attempts to pitch a project: a trip planning app

Entering the Matrice

Fast forward to the end of 2020. I’m 23 years old. COVID has exploded, and the world shut down. I’ve spent the past few months feeling more vulnerable than ever, struggling with my mental health, watching my routines collapse, and feeling my mood slip away. I’ve been drifting from hospital to hospital, unsure of what comes next.

But something came. A new project, a new venture, something exciting. Something that would require days and nights of imagining, coding, and doing my best in the shortest time possible. After meeting with two ex-colleagues, who would soon become two of my co-founders, I was convinced to jump into this new adventure, and I would be the CTO.

Our beginnings: the original team of co-founders and first hires (in Ghibli-style, because why not)

The first few months were, and still are, incredibly special to me. I can’t describe how much I value that bootstrapping phase, where everything feels possible simply because everything still needs to be built. I started coding the platform’s modules, pushing a thousand lines of code every 24 hours, creating new features, and rapidly expanding the platform.

I worked closely with my company’s CEO, that ex-colleague I had known for years. It was a delight to imagine the future while building the present. I was developing features almost in real time as we brainstormed them in our meetings, turning ideas into reality as fast as we could think them up. I would wake up in the middle of the night to push lines of code, unable to sleep because new ideas kept racing through my mind.

I had to learn to understand the other founders, which wasn’t easy since we had different personalities, backgrounds, and visions. It was particularly challenging for me, as it always is when I have to meet new people, especially in a context where social harmony is expected, not just casual small talk. Navigating unspoken rules, reading between the lines, and figuring out the right way to communicate without overanalysing every interaction felt exhausting. I remember feeling anxious for a long time, constantly questioning if I was saying the right things or if I was coming across the way I intended. To be honest, it’s still pretty much the same today, it just feels a bit safer.

€2.5M

Hey guys, they loved the demo. Let’s grab some pizzas and talk about something

Only four months after writing the first line of code and signing our first clients, we already had several solid offers from VCs. A month later, after accepting the best ones, we decided to officially launch our company to the public. In April 2021, it was born, and we announced our €2.5M fundraising at the same time. We were officially building something very exciting.

Recruiting

Here comes the unknown! I couldn’t keep developing and maintaining the main platform and new products on my own forever. After all, I couldn’t work 24/7, and at some point, we had to build a tech team to prove we could scale. That meant hiring people, conducting interviews, and, eventually, managing them.

I had my first interview. He was a nice guy, and I thought he could code and understand things easily, like me. I decided to hire him, but it turned out to be a mistake. Instead of easing my workload, it added more weight on my shoulders than if I had just worked alone. I remember not understanding how this could happen: why this nice person just wasn’t good enough? It made me sick, draining all my mental bandwidth. So we hired someone new, then another, and another. With each hire, we gained a better sense of skill levels and what we could realistically expect from a developer. Eventually, we had to terminate some contracts. It was really tough.

Conducting interviews, onboarding people, managing them, it was exhausting. I no longer had the energy to code efficiently.

I remember when we moved into our first office, with sales and operations people joining the team. It was exciting, but I had to face a difficult question: how could I be a CTO if I couldn’t manage my team without burning out and becoming useless to the company? The answer seems obvious now: I simply didn’t have to be the CTO anymore!

Product, Innovation and 🇬🇧

We decided that we would find the new CTO for the company and gradually transition myself into the role of CPO. The goal was to build a proper product organisation to support both the tech team and the broader company vision. It was an interesting period. We were still regularly hiring new engineers, and I was working closely with the future CTO before eventually handing over the team to him.

But what is product, anyway? I had no theoretical understanding of it. It’s not something that was taught in school or online, well, it is now, but even then, there’s no single way of doing “it”. What I did know was how to code and how to make things efficient, so I started from there. I iterated on methods, organisation, roadmaps, communication, boards, design, sprints—everything. Time passed and eventually, we hired a product manager to work with me. Then a product designer.

And… wow, hold on a second. I was building a team again. A team I would have to manage. Hmm. I was definitely having a bit of déjà vu.

I wasn’t just doing “product stuff” (whatever that means). I was still coding a lot, helping the engineers, and working on projects on my own to keep things moving quickly. I’ve always valued flexibility and being hands-on where it matters. And once again, I found myself either being slowed down or getting bored by how my role was evolving. Hey, let’s hire a CPO, no? It worked pretty well the first time.

Oh, I almost forgot: I also moved to the UK in the meantime. That meant I wasn’t physically with my team anymore, at least not as often as before. It didn’t exactly make things easier, but I’m genuinely happy with that decision. I got to discover a new place and be part of the daily life in what became our London office, full of lovely people too.

So here we were again, hiring a CPO (well, a Head of Product at the time) and transitioning slowly, giving me the space to focus on what really matters to me: building, shipping, solving problems. Doing things that actually move the company forward.

At that point, we were kind of running out of C-level titles. What could I be next? Can’t I just be Robin?

All right: Chief Innovation Officer it is.

What I once thought was a BS title actually turned out to be a pretty accurate summary of what I do every day: exploring new ideas, testing things quickly, challenging how we work, and building high-value features on my own, while still staying closely connected with the different teams. We also raised a €15M Series A around this time, investors were confident, we felt the same.

Having a lovely time with the UK team! 🎄

Scaling

If I take a moment to reflect on what we’ve achieved so far, it’s kind of nice, at least, I think it is.

In less than four years, we acquired 2 companies (one outsourcer competitor and one AI startup), grew our ARR (annual recurring revenue) from €0 to €25M, built a team of over 100 permanent employees across three countries, and now counting on more than 2,000 contractors throughout Europe and beyond. Today, we are a profitable business.

It’s easy not to reflect, not to take the time to feel proud or grateful. I’m usually just focused on the work, always thinking about what’s next. It always feels like the beginning to me. Like there’s more to build, more to fix, more to figure out, like it was still day one.

Part of the team at the headquarters in Paris (with our awesome CTO Sacha taking the selfie)

A Different Way of Thinking

I haven't talked about autism as much as you might have expected so far in this article, but it’s everywhere between the lines. It shaped how I saw school and childhood as a system I had to escape. It’s in the anxiety I felt when building new teams, in the exhaustion from trying to read people, in the moments I disappeared into code because that’s where things are a bit calmer.

Being autistic doesn’t mean I have superpowers. It means I experience the world in a way that often clashes with how things are structured — socially, professionally, emotionally. It means I need clarity, consistency, and space to think. It means my habits and routines are essential anchors in a world that often feels unpredictable. It means I can hyperfocus for days, then burn out because I’ve gone too far without noticing. It means new situations, unexpected changes, and social interactions, even the ones that seem basic , can be deeply destabilising. It means I struggle with unspoken expectations, new situations, sensory issues, anxiety and group dynamics, but I thrive in being quiet and building things that solve problems.

What’s hard isn’t always visible. The way I process things, the importance I place on routine, structure, and calm doesn’t always translate. What seems small or trivial to someone else might be something I depend on to feel safe and steady. Masking, overthinking every conversation, trying to function in ways that don’t come naturally: those are quiet battles I fight almost every day. I’ve learned to work around them, sometimes through delegation, sometimes through brute force, and sometimes just by accepting that I’ll never be the most socially comfortable person in the room. But I’ve also learned to own the things that make me different; the obsession with doing things well, the need to question everything, the craving for clarity, efficiency, and usefulness.

It also means I need more rest than most people. Not because I’m lazy, or unmotivated, but because navigating the world, especially the social and chaotic parts of it, takes an enormous amount of energy. After a day of meetings, commutes, conversations, context-switching, or just being around people, I often feel completely drained. Sleep isn’t just rest for me, it’s recovery. I’ve learned to listen to that need rather than fight it. I sleep more than others, and I don’t feel too guilty about it anymore (still a little bit). It’s part of what allows me to function, to focus, to create. Without that space to recharge, I just can’t show up as myself.

Being autistic and a founder can be especially challenging. You're expected to do things you’re not naturally wired to do like talking to a lot of people, going to events, handling constant uncertainty, and showing up with a confident smile even when you’re falling apart inside. And when your sense of balance depends on having a predictable rhythm, that kind of chaos can be overwhelming. And people don’t always understand. You keep your head up, you keep adapting, and most of the time, it works. But it can also be lonely, even with your own associates.

That said, I’m fully aware you don’t have to be a founder to feel this way. Most jobs require you to act “normal,” to communicate smoothly, to perform socially, and that’s exhausting. Many workplaces (and society in general, even more so than the workplace itself) aren't designed for autistic people, and functioning in them every day takes an unseen toll.

I’ve been lucky. I’m mostly surrounded by people who understand me. They give me the space I need, they trust me, they know how I work. For that, I’m genuinely grateful.

I don’t know what comes next, but I know I’ll keep building. That’s the one thing that’s never changed.

And maybe that’s the most autistic part of me.